Terminal Hospitality

I've been feeling a little guilty of late that I've let my once beloved blog lie fallow for an entire month. That's an entire month of lying in bed watching on demand episodes of Dateline while eating pasta out of a cast-iron pot while my ass fat incrementally expands into ever larger pools around my inanimate body.

Well, not quite.

There was the April exam-bonanza-period and then, once school was all wrapped up, I felt the need to do nothing for a little bit. In part because I'm extremely poor but I also think we underestimate what goes on in our subconscious when we are apparently doing nothing. Sometimes it's healthy to let the dust settle a little bit and appraise the field of battle. Then, once the horses have been watered and the soldiers provisioned, set forth once again into the great abyss/cosmic adventure known as life.

With school all done and the balance on my credit card inching closer and closer to its limit the time has come to launch myself full throttle into the disastrous chaos of the restaurant industry.

Fortunately it was easy to secure a job. With the name of the famous, temperamental TV chef listed as the last employer on my resume I breezed through three interviews and landed myself a job at a brand new restaurant scheduled to open after the May long weekend on the moderately polluted shores of Lake Ontario.

This job will mark my first venture into the cultish world of corporate employment, my company owns roughly a dozen profitable Irish pubs around the greater Toronto area. And it wasn't long before the cold, inhuman grasp of corporate culture grabbed me by the throat.

Which is not to say that working for a corporation isn't without benefits.

The company I now work for operates a famous and well regarded craft brewery here in Toronto. So on a drizzly morning last week all 50+ front of house employees gathered at the flagship brewpub for several hours of "beer tasting." Now I put 'beer tasting' in quotations because, as seasoned a drinker as I consider myself to be, I'm not really TASTING my liquor before noon. Oh, I'm DRINKING it but the passage from cup to stomach is a rather murky journey.

A prominent beer writer lectured us about the differences between ales and lagers, the finer points of dry-hopping and gave us a brief history lesson on the origin of the term India Pale Ale.

(Apparently this term was applied to regular English pale ale that was shipped to India. The beer was heavily dosed with hops which, though now a vital part of beer production, were added as a preservative. This is how IPA's developed their signature hoppiness. By the by, Keith's is NOT an IPA!!!! It's commercial quality shit juice.)

At 11 a.m. the group dispersed and released me, feeling rather saucy, out into the world. Whereupon I promptly returned home and took a nap. More beer tasting followed, this time in the evening (thank god!).

My fellow staff and I sat elbow to elbow at long trestle tables 'agitating' modest pours of amber liquid in our glasses before shoving our noses inside and making snobby declarations such as; "Hmm, burnt caramel." "Very hoppy with a funky bitterness in the mid-palate."

Tonight we were back for MORE training. The session started with a three page written beer exam full of trick questions.

e.g.

Question: Is it a matter of importance whether beer is made with spring water?

My answer: Yes. The mineral content of water will change the taste of the beer and certain beers require a certain flavour profile in their water to achieve the desired beer-style characteristics. For example a British ale should be made with hard water with a high mineral content whereas a pilsner should be made with soft water to evoke more floral characteristics.

The right answer: No. Tap water can be treated so that it mimics the characteristics of spring water.

B*llshit!

This was followed by an enlightening training video, something right out of one of the great cult films made about blue collar misery such as 'Office Space' or 'Waiting.'

The video's inspiring title is "Service that Sells!!!" and the affair is narrated by a fat American who jabs his finger directly into the camera while exhorting "THAT'S service that sells!!!" or "That's NOT service that sells!!!"

He encourages us to "make our service sizzle NOT fizzle" and to push guests ordering take out over the phone to buy drinks and desserts. Overlooking the fact that someone who has the unwelcome task of picking up a large takeout order for the weekly "special office lunch" does NOT want to be responsible for/carrying in their car anything that might either spill or melt.

He drones on and on but eventually shows his true (evil!) colours.

"Restaurants employ bussers who, unfortunately, have to come in contact with the guests. The guest experience is lessened every time they come into contact with one of these people. They're fizzling, not sizzling. Guests who ask a busser for a refill will almost always get the response 'Not my job!' or 'No habla!'"

The room erupts with laughter.

Of course this douche-bag probably doesn't realize that the Mexican busboy he is accosting for his refill of unsweetened ice tea is probably PRETENDING not to speak English.

I know I would if this wooly barbarian was breathing in my face with congealed bits of bacon leftover from his fully loaded potato skins clinging to his gums.

Ah, the industry! I love it, I hate it. But whether I like it or not it's kept me in cold beer and Bangladeshi-made H&M threads for years. Getting back into its hateful, seductive fold is like a coming home.

To end my tirade I leave you with a message written by my crazy downstairs neighbour on the communal whiteboard in the hallway of the apartment building. It's kind of sad but if I didn't document her insanity no one would ever believe me.

And "Lucas" is her perpetually yapping bundle of canine horror i.e. her dog.